Hot water storage for increased electricity production with organic Rankine cycle from intermittent residual heat sources in the steel industry

Kenny Couvreur, Wim Beyne, Michel De Paepe and Steven Lecompte

Energy, 2020, vol. 200, issue C

Abstract: In energy intensive industries, organic Rankine cycles (ORC) can significantly increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions by converting low- and medium-temperature residual heat to electricity. However, fluctuations in residual heat availability can negatively affect the operation of an ORC unit. By integrating intermediate thermal energy storage (TES) these fluctuations can be mitigated and part-load operation of the ORC unit can be avoided. In this paper, a solution for utilizing residual heat from flue gases fluctuating in both temperature and volume flow rate by means of an ORC is assessed. A TES system in the form of a pressurized hot water storage is modelled with the purpose of providing a steady thermal power and temperature to the ORC system. It is shown that thermal power variations are effectively attenuated by the thermal capacity of the water inside the TES system and thermal power to the ORC can be controlled by varying the mass flow rate to the ORC. Furthermore, a financial analysis including the main techno-economic parameters is presented, giving useful insights about the key factors influencing the feasibility of combined TES-ORC investment.

Keywords: Fluctuating residual heat; Organic Rankine cycle; Pressurized hot water storage; Thermal energy storage; Residual heat recovery; Waste heat recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220306083
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:200:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220306083

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117501

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().